Should I Buy This Scope?

[pbyrne]

Advice needed from you good people.

I have an opportunity to pick up a 10" LX200 classic at a good price, £600. The seller says that he has not used it in 4 years, though it has been stored carefully, there was an electronics problem that he has sorted out with the help of TelescopeHouse.

Knowing that parts are difficult to come by and it has a previous problem, and my knowledge of electronics is slightly less than zero, should I go for it?

All help gratefully received.

[JohnC]

Its a good price.

I have had a number of classics and they were all good.

there is a mountain of info and advice available, parts are harder to get but by no means impossible. Even if you demounted it in the future Its a good price for a 10" ota.

[CGolder]

If your going to use it then its a super deal, if you are not then its not i love my 10" lx90 and the view are cracking..

I guess the question is... are you going to use it for visual over your 12" dob?

[pbyrne]

It will be used for visual work, the 12" is getting a little much for my back and I have a potential buyer lined up for the dob. I am also looking at a more permanent mounting option.

[Earl]

Id say yes but id also de-fork it and put it on a EQ mount

[CGolder]

I don't think the 10" will be better for your back, if its a permanent set up then its ideal, but you need to carry it as one unit and put it straight onto the tripod. for visual use the folk mounts cant be beaten.

[Doug]

Hi Paul

Lovely Scope Did you buy it ?

Doug

Essex

[pbyrne]

I've dithered about buying it, one moment I want it and the next I'm not so sure, yes, I am a dithering idiot. Now I want it again. A colleague is selling it on behalf of a elderly gentleman he knows and he's out of contact at the moment and I'm waiting for him to get back to me.

I don't think the 10" will be better for your back

The tube of the dob is 50lbs in weight and 58" long, it is large and unwieldly with the weight being concentrated on one end. It is an awkward piece of equipment to pick up. The SCT weighs in about 30lbs and is more compact, it also comes with carrying handles.

id also de-fork it and put it on a EQ mount

That is the ultimate long term plan, a permanent mounting in a home built observatory.

Thanks for the advice people, invaluable as always.

[pbyrne]

I picked up the scope yesterday and I certainly got a bargain. It is i excellent shape, there is a large scratch on the tube, but cosmetics don't beother me. The optics appear to be in great shape, there are no scrapes, blemishes and only a few minor spots on the corrector plate.

The scope slews in all directions, the motor is not too loud, the hand controller is easy to learn the commands and the tripod is a solid 2" legged beast.

I have not had the opportunity to test it yet, cloudy skies all the way, but I am confident that it will perform very well.

I'll post some pictures and give a report when possible.

[nightfisher]

good luck with it, we look forward to hearing your 1st light report

[kris h]

Sounds like you got yourself a great deal 600 for one of those scopes

nice one just wanna see some pics of the BEAST

Clear skies

[pbyrne]

Hey People

I got the scope out tonight for a test run and I thought I would give you my impressions.

First up the scope is well built, solid and heavy. The tripod has 2" steel legs, this is a scope that was built in Meade's plant in California and reflects this. There are a few marks and paint chips, there is one large one on the OTA, but optics to me are more important than cosmetics

Okay, here comes the first complaint. With the tripod set up, the scope and controller base has to be put on top and the centre treaded bar inserted to secure the pair, it is an absolute pain in the you know what trying to align the pair, it is a matter of guesswork and I found that I was balancing the scope with one hand and putting my other hand underneath to locate the hole underneath the base to give an idea of where it is. If the scope slipped my fingers would be trapped, painful. A bubble level in the tripod would have been better.

I got it sorted and connected all the cables, I was running the power via the adapter run through an extension cable that was plugged into a socket in the shed. Everything set up I turned on the power and the scope began to rotate. I thought that maybe this was normal, but after a couple of rotations I came to the conclusion that this was not the case and turned the power off. Turned it back on and notning happened, the word Meade appeared on the handset and nothing else. Took a deep breath, turned it off and turned it on again. The telescope began rotating again, panic set in and I turned it off again. I did this a number of times with the same result, now I was worried. I thought about it for a moment, it had worked in the house yesterday, it had worked in the house of the man I had bought it from, so what was the difference? The extension cable, I remembered that we had trouble with it before, I replaced it with another extension and turned the scope on again. PHEW! Everything was working as it should.

I went through the process of the 2 star alignment, using Rigel and Polaris, and was ready. I have 2" eyepieces, the diagonal is a 1.25" so I was reduced to a 26mm plossl and the next down was my 13mm Nagler. I decided that I would give it a test and insert the Nagler, this gives a magnification of 192 and a field of view of 0.43 degrees.

I punched in M42, the scope slewed, the motors are loud, but no louder than a CG5 I had some years back. It came to a halt and a beep told me so. I looked into the eyepice and there was M42, slighty off to the side, but in the field of view. Good.

Next was M81, once again the galaxy was in the field of view, the same occured with the Auriga clusters, M35 and NGC 457, M31 was way off for some reason. For fainter objects my light pollution troubles prevented me from really giving it a better assessment,a dark site is needed for this, on that note the hand controller has a capacity to hold four seperate sites plus one unknown, useful if you move around much.

Here comes complaint number 2: The dec motor cable would get entangled if the scope has to slew too far and I could hear the motor complain when this happened. A longer cable would have been preferrable, I found that if the scope was not swung around the sky in great chunks east and west this could be avoided.

As a test of the guiding capabilities I centered the scope on NGC 457, left it and went inside for a cup of tea. I came back out after about 15 minutes and found that the cluster was exactly where I had left it. Impressive.

At the end of the day I can say for £600 I have gotten myself one heck of a bargain, and as a first step towards a permanent setup I've landed on my feet. It is an older scope, a dozen years or more, the performance has me highly impressed, if anything goes wrong, well, that's a different matter, parts are hard to come by, but I'm not thinking along those lines.

Am I a happy bunny? You bet. I have a 2" diagonal on the way and this will bring my 2" EPs into play and only increase the capacity of the scope.

Thanks for sitting with me this long and I will post pics tomorrow.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

That is an amazing bargain! I bet you can't wait to get the 2" diagonal.

Cheers and clear skies,

Michael

[russ]

You got an amazing bargain there Paul. The ota alone is worth that. And the Classic is such a reliable beast. I've had four 10" Meade SCT's over the years and all but one gave outstanding views. Enjoy the scope.

[Neo_uk]

I can agree,

I had a celestron c8 prior to my lx200 10" and i dithered about just how much difference it would make for the money i was paying all i can say is wait until you look at the moon and planets ! the moon blew me away craters were 3 dimensional and the mountains looked like mountains and not bumps and as for the planets only really looked at jupiter but lots of details in the bands but cant wait for saturn.

i decided to de-fork mine and have pier mounted it on a eq6.

http://stargazerslounge.com/equipment-discussion/123494-power-usb-cables-your-pier.html

bargain price paid £1000 for mine

[pbyrne]

Hi Everyone.

I managed to download some images of the scope.

The business end with attached dew shield.

The Smart Drive.

The hand controller showing M35.

View from the side.

View from the back showing the scratch, an Apollo 11 decal will cover that.

This is a view of the base of one of the legs, as you can see they come with a double locking mechanism and this provides a greater level of security from slippage.

That's what the ultimate aim is Neo, money is thin at the moment, but I can wait and hopefully by the time I can afford it the EQ8, or bigger will be available.

[paul mc c]

I was very close to buying this scope,i had a 8'' LX10 and wanted some more apperture,it is an excellent scope and at a good price,wish you luck with it.

Paul

[pbyrne]

Thanks Paul

I managed to get an hour this evening, clouds rolled in. One thing I don't like about SCTs is the focuser, there is a ridiculous amount of image shift as the star jumps across the FOV.

One of the other reasons I bought it is that I would like to go back to two of my old loves, the moon and double stars. I got a quick chance at both tonight and boy am I excited.

[paul mc c]

I had a Crayford on my LX10, this was a great improvement,also you can get a mirror lock which is also a great improvement.The views of the moon and planets i had where e

excellent,wait to you see Saturn!

Paul

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

What a beauty!

Looking forward to a full first light report